Let Them See You Love Each Other: Why Your Marriage Is a Gift to Your Children

Dear friend,

If you could give your children one thing that would steady them for the rest of their lives, it would not be a bigger house, a better school, or a fuller schedule of activities. It would be the sight of their mother and father loving each other. That may sound too simple, but children are watching long before they are listening, and the marriage at the center of a home is the first picture of love they will ever study. This is the quiet truth so many of us learn late: the best thing you can do for your children is to love the one you married, faithfully and visibly, in the ordinary hours of ordinary days.

Think first about what your marriage means to a child's sense of security. Children read the weather of a home the way farmers read the sky. They notice the tone at the dinner table, the way Dad greets Mom at the door, whether an apology follows a sharp word. When the love between their parents is steady, a child's whole world feels steady, and that security frees them to grow. They sleep easier, risk more bravely, and forgive more quickly, because the ground beneath them does not shake. A child who knows Mom and Dad are for each other rarely wonders whether the family will hold. That confidence is worth more than anything money can buy.

Consider, too, that your marriage is the classroom where your children learn how to love. One day your son will be a husband and your daughter a wife, and the habits they carry into those homes are being formed right now at your kitchen table. When they see their father speak gently to their mother, they learn what strength looks like. When they see their mother show respect and warmth toward their father, they learn what honor looks like. When they watch two imperfect people say I was wrong, will you forgive me, and mean it, they learn that love is not a feeling that visits but a promise that stays. No lecture on character will ever teach what a thousand small kindnesses between parents teach without a word.

This is why tending your marriage is not a luxury you steal from your children; it is a provision you make for them. So many devoted parents pour everything into the kids and leave nothing for each other, believing this is sacrifice. But a child who receives every scrap of a parent's attention while the marriage starves is not richer for it. Take the walk together, even if it is just a slow lap around the block on a cool Omaha evening. Guard the evening conversation after the little ones are in bed. Let your children see you hold hands on the porch, laugh at old jokes, and choose each other again and again. Far from feeling neglected, children who watch their parents delight in each other feel wonderfully, unshakably safe. It is good for a child to learn that Mom and Dad were something before the children came and will be something after they go, and that this something is beautiful.

And if you have hard days, take heart, because your children do not need a perfect marriage to feel secure; they need a faithful one. Every couple disagrees. What matters is that our children see us disagree with respect and, more importantly, see us repair. A child who watches parents work through a conflict and come out the other side still tender toward one another learns something priceless: love is stronger than friction. Homes where nothing is ever wrong teach less than homes where wrong things are made right. Keep short accounts. Apologize in front of the children when the sharp words happened in front of the children. Let them witness grace in action, because grace witnessed is grace learned.

Finally, remember that this daily, deliberate love is bigger than the two of you. Marriage was designed to be a picture of covenant, of a love that does not quit when the feelings thin out. When you choose each other on the tired nights and the tight months, you are showing your children the very heart of faithfulness, and giving them a glimpse of the steadfast love of God himself. That is not sentimentality; that is inheritance.

So tonight, in front of the children, kiss your wife. Thank your husband. Say something kind out loud. It will feel small. It is not. Somewhere nearby, in a quiet house in Dundee or Millard or on the far edge of Omaha, little eyes are watching and little hearts are concluding that love is real, that promises hold, and that home is the safest place on earth. There is no greater gift you will ever wrap.

With you in the work, Explore Omaha